The Lavoisier Group is a global warming skeptic organisation, based in Australia. It argues that the evidence for global warming is based on inexact science and that any policy responses, such as signing the Kyoto Protocol, would be too expensive for Australia's industry.

Contents

Membership

Lavoisier is a fairly small operation, with under 100 members and an annual budget of around $10,000.[1] Most of the members are over 60 years old. Secretary Ray Evans describes the 90-odd Lavoisier members as a "dad's army" of mostly retired engineers and scientists from the mining, manufacturing and construction industries,[2] such as Garth Paltridge and Ian Plimer.

Ideology

In 2001 Australian economist John Quiggin wrote that the Lavoisier Group is "devoted to the proposition that basic principles of physics...cease to apply when they come into conflict with the interests of the Australian coal industry." [1]

Author Clive Hamilton, is his book Scorcher, says that one can find the following arguments in the various papers promoted by the Lavoisier Group:[3]

There is no evidence of global warming.

If there is evidence of global warming, then it is not due to human activity.

If global warming is occurring and it is due to human activity, then it is not going to be damaging.

If global warming is occurring and it is due to human activity, and it is going to be damaging, then the costs of avoiding it are too high, so we should do nothing.